PoM 151
For Shelley:
Believing in God is an act of faith.
Knowing God is a consequence of experience.
The ancient Jews made regular sacrifices to their God.
For some reason that get’s God’s attention.
“Religion without sacrifice means nothing” according to Gandhi.
AA learned this lesson:
The best way to know God is to be absolutely powerless, to ask for His help, and then experience His freedom that comes from the humility of receiving help, through others.
I believe in God no matter what anyone says because on May 4 of 1988 I put a beer to my lips, after not drinking for 30 days, and said the prayer “Please help me not drink this”….and I didn’t.
It is a simple as that…I now know God
It’s available to anyone, who is willing to surrender.
PoM 152
How to write in effective share:
12 Step step recovery sharing has been built on “experience, strength, and hope”.
That’s all you need…no more.
But…if you do want more:
Make sure that it vulnerable, authoritative…and funny
Make it vulnerable…so that you can reach people emotionally.
Quote the Big Book or the 12x12…so that people know what you’re talking about.
And tell a non-shaming, self-deprecatory story about yourself…Because we all need to laugh.
PoM 153
On the need for creativity:
Recreation comes from the Latin word recreare
which means “mental and spiritual consolation through play”.
I don’t know about you, but I get tired in the course of a normal day.
I need to “re-create” myself…when I am spent.
I like funny things: books by Fran Lebowitz, Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut and movies by that moral reprobate, Woody Allen.
Laughing gives me “mental and spiritual consolation.”
But, those things are passive. I am enjoying someone else’s creativity.
But, I also find spiritual consolation in playing the guitar.
As a practicing alcoholic I confused my needs for financial safety, esteem of others and creativity, all of which are essential needs.
When those needs were all balled up, being a very, very successful guitar player seemed only logical to my confused mind.
Now, with the clarity that I have gained from sobriety in a number of areas I have boundaries with my needs.
I get financial needs met in one place and my need for esteem of others met somewhere else.
…and that leaves the guitar playing to meet my need for creativity.
I am not a fully self-actualized person if I haven’t meet this very real need for creativity that God has installed within each of us.
And when I’m too tired to pick up a pick…I just watch Bullets Over Broadway or Stardust Memories…
PoM 154
I will always have pain and problems
Saint Augustine, arguably the second holiest man in history, after Jesus, lay on his deathbed and he could hear out the window the Vandals attacking and tearing his city apart, that he fought for all his life.
I will always have pain and problems.
The question is what will be my attitude about them?
PoM 155
ActWithCourage.com can feel so loving and comprehensive that it would be easy to get grandiose, like AA did in the early days, and begin to think that we can save the world.
But, humility is knowing your limits.
Five years ago our Board of Directors decided that there were two particular types of sex addicts that we were not going to be able to serve: Active child molesters and active bestialists.
It was decided it to refer these people to professionals.
On the other extreme, it was decided that people who are still questioning whether they were alcoholics, or misusing street drugs or prescribed medications, needed to go to Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous, respectively.
AA and NA are about behavior modification.
Otherwise the feminine nature of what we do can seem superfluous, self-care can be confused as selfishness, high self-esteem can look like vanity or arrogance. Family of origin work can look like “belly button gazing”.
In humility, we are a broad-based, moderate program, but we kind of expect you to have dealt with those things before you get here.